(I refuse to type the company name so that they don't get free advertising.)
Among other reasons, the company allows hosts to implement "no cancelation" policies on their stays, while the rental company doesn't audit the premises to ensure that claims made are accurate.
Then, if you have an issue with the place or host...well, tough luck! It'll be a multi-month battle to get a refund if you leave the stay. That is, if they decide to give you a refund.
By auditing, I mean little things, like owning or having sublet rights to the listed stay. That's right, i had to deal with the owner of a condo once because the person who listed the stay was not even the person on the rental agreement. Fun times.
When I reported this to the rental company what did they do? Nothing.
But, they did allow the faux host to leave a review for me, which was biased negative because I asked if they could add an extension to the shower head in order to raise it up to a normal height.
That's only one of many stories I have.
Past summer, they managed to not-deliver a shipment from .de->.nl - TWICE.
In both cases, package was returned to sender without any attempt to make delivery at a nearby pickup point, leave for a few days @ DHL sorting center, contact sender or addressee to ask how to proceed, or me being able to stop them returning the package.
Address info was correct, and pickup point was where address said, available & open. If I can believe tracking info, DHL delivery truck had even been there!?
This played out over 2 weeks. Extremely frustrating. All forms of support I tried, had no info, were powerless to do anything, and unable to provide a solution.
Same product ordered through Amazon (also coming from a .de warehouse), last mile delivery through Dutch postal service (PostNL) with exact same delivery method: 2-day delivery no problem whatsoever.
In the past I've had very few problems shipping or receiving packages. But on one ocassion an (at the time expensive) digital camera was lost in transit. No compensation. Guess who? Also DHL on that one.
Reading some reports online, I gathered this was not an exception. I get it: with a company that handles millions of packages, mistakes are made. That is not the problem. It's how mistakes are handled (and that is how I tend to judge services / companies).
In that last aspect, DHL acted, well.. next-level incompetent. It makes me view that companies' culture as being uninterested in doing their job well, (on occasion) going the extra mile to get the job done, or fix a mistake. Just: cash shipping $$ from sender, make minimal effort to 'keep up appearances', f%# anything beyond that.
Which made me conclude: I do not want to have my belongings handled by DHL ever again, if I can avoid it. Webshop only ships through them? Sorry then, it just lost a sale.
Their competitor Hermes does the right thing and offers the use of their boxes via their website.